In honor of this man who has changed the entertainment industry and created childhood memories, here is the story of how Walt Disney’s career and famous company came to be.

Walt started drawing creatively at a very young age and art was one of his main passions. Walt went to McKinley High School in Chicago, where he took classes in drawing and photography. He also took part in illustrating for the school newspaper. Disney’s early short cartoons were made with his first recruited employee Fred Harman. They called these little films Laugh-O-Grams. The cartoons were hugely popular, and soon Disney was able to acquire his own studio. He hired a few more employees and together they did a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation.                                                          

Soon, Disney and his brother Roy pooled their money together and moved to Hollywood. After the move, they started the Disney Brothers’ studio and created a new character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. A few years later, Disney discovered that the rights to the new character had been stolen, along with his animator employees. But that didn’t get Disney down. Instead, he produced three more cartoons with his newly designed character, Mickey Mouse. The new cartoon was an instant sensation among the public, and today Mickey Mouse has become the face of the animated industry.

The first showing of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was on December 21, 1937 in Los Angeles. It was the first animated film of its length, produced an income of $1.499 million and won a total of eight Oscars. More classic animated films such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi were released in the following five years. By 1950, Disney once again was completely focused on making more animated feature films. Cinderella was released that year, followed by Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, a live-action film called Treasure Island, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, and 101 Dalmatians.

In 1955, Disneyland became a reality out of Disney’s imagination. Within a few years of the opening, Disney made plans for a new theme park in Florida, but while it was still under construction, Disney was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on December 15th, 1966 at the age of 65.

“My favorite Disney movie is Mulan,” says 8th grade student Rachel Rusch. “She is the bravest Disney princess in my opinion because she volunteered herself to take her father’s place in the war. Films like this show people of all ages and types that they can be who they are, and it’s okay.” If Walt Disney had never been born, then iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, wouldn’t have been such major parts of childhoods around the globe. Disney made the idea of magic and fairytales come to life in a way that nobody else had done before.